“No,” Cara says from the doorway, “it’s about survival. What if one of those guys you were skinny-dipping with was the Vamplayer? What if he’d turned you or, worse, drained you? We didn’t hear from you for nearly twelve hours. Alice, that’s far too long to be safe.”
I hear the familiar sound of metal hangers sliding across the rusty bar in her tiny closet.
“What if they’d gotten to you?” Cara says. “How would we even know?”
“How can we help you if we don’t even know where you are?” I add, knowing I’m piling on, more concerned for Alice’s safety than her feelings.
“Okay, okay.” Alice still sounds unconvinced. “I’ll call next time. Sheesh. Last I checked, you guys were supposed to be my Sisters, not my mothers.”
There is a knock at the door.
Cara and I both freak, scrambling to gather one of the flattened blood sacks at Alice’s feet like an empty beer can after a frat party.
“Are you expecting someone?” I say, tossing Dr. Haskins’ special delivery box into my room.
The door swings open.
“Bianca, baby,” Alice gushes, dramatically tossing a scarf around her bare shoulders and bounding from her room, nearly knocking Cara over in the process. She’s wearing short shorts, a tube top, and wedge heels. (Hey, you can take the vampire out of the girl, but you can’t take the girl out of the vampire.)
“Come on in!” she says unnecessarily.
Bianca’s already middoorway by now. The nerve! She’s wearing a sangria pencil skirt with a gold chain belt that cinches her size-two waist, a sheer white blouse with skinny arms over a black bra, and a severe black choker studded with rhinestones. It sounds gaudy and would be on most chicks, but Bianca works it something fierce.
I stand by my own doorway trying to look casual and note one last blood bag on the floor by Alice’s easy chair. I shoot Cara a glance.
She spots it, quickly kicking it under the couch before Bianca can see it as well.
”This is cozy,” Bianca says unconvincingly, slipping all the way into the suite and sliding the door shut behind her with a click that resonates with finality.
The way she says cozy, stretching it out into several syllables with a sneer (obviously her specialty), she makes it sound anything but.
“You’ve met my suite mates, Cara and Lily, haven’t you?” Alice’s tone is almost subservient, as if Bianca is some great-aunt with an even greater bank account and we’re just scullery maids tidying up the place.
“If by met you mean got slaughtered on the dodgeball court, then, yes, I’ve met them.”
We all laugh.
Bianca rests her hand against a chair and waits while Alice finishes up in the bathroom. It’s the first time we’ve been face-to-face without her nose all up in Tristan’s armpit or her hands flinging dodge balls at me.
I can see why Tristan and Alice are enamored with her. It’s not merely her flowing red hair, her angular pale face, her long elegant neck, or even longer sexier legs, to say nothing of her narrow waist and big boobs. Yes, she’s got all the working parts. They’re all fantastic and they all blend well together, but it’s more than the sum of her parts. There’s just something about her.
By the way Cara’s checking her out, I can tell she can spot it too. We’re not scoping her out in any type of official Sister capacity. This is purely girl stuff.
Whatever Bianca has going for her, it’s working. I can’t put a name on it, exactly, other than to say it’s pretty powerful stuff. It’s something the “it girls” in every school have. And trust me, we’ve seen and saved hundreds by now. It’s not that they’re the most beautiful, though Bianca is certainly gorgeous, but there are dozens of girls who are, say, hotter. They might have longer legs, better abs, more striking eyes or cheekbones. But they lack her presence, her command of a room, her strength of personality.
I can see why Tristan chose her, why he’s seducing her, and why of all the girls at Nightshade it’s Bianca he’ll try to turn into a Vampress. She has what he needs: access. She has the connections, the friends, the parties, the hookups, the influence, and of course the respect of just about everybody at Nightshade. Everybody who counts, anyway.
Once Tristan turns her, tells her what he needs from her, it will be nothing for her to turn the rest of the school, regardless of what she’s selling. If a girl like Bianca says, “Hey, gang, we’re going to an all-night rave in this abandoned barn and the only price of admission is that I have to bite your neck on the way in,” forget about it. It would be standing-room-only vampires in ten minutes or less.
That’s why our job as Sisters isn’t merely to spot the Vamplayer but to identify his likely victim. If we can get to her, make her see what’s going on, even keep her out of harm’s way, then the Vamplayer usually gives up, calls it a draw, and moves on.
I just hope we’ll be able to stop him in time.
Alice sprays more perfume than should be humanly possible onto her radiant throat.
“So,” I say like the older sister who’s already in her nightgown at eight and looking forward to a hot cup of tea and a good book by the fire while the younger one races around getting ready to use her fake ID at some bar downtown, “what are you two doing tonight?”
Bianca looks at Alice and then Cara. “Not much,” she answers without looking at me, apparently admiring Cara’s mocha skin and long, black braids. “But we were hoping you could join us.”
The sudden attention seems to both embarrass and flatter Cara.
It’s such a small room, and so much is going on. I can see it all in slow motion, like with the dodge balls earlier, gelling together in this prep-school-rich-witch-mean-girls-bad-eighties-movie way. I’m being left behind even as I’m compelled to watch the train departing from the station without me.
Cara in particular seems caught up in a whirlwind of emotions. I can see them cross her face. She’s obviously thinking about what’s best for the Academy, for Dr. Haskins, for the mission, then pouting and thinking about what’s best for her— even for me.
She’s not answering, so I answer for us. “Well, that all depends. There’s that term paper due tomorrow and—”
“I meant Cara,” Bianca snaps, interrupting me.
No, not just interrupting me. Silencing me.
I stand stock still.
Cara avoids looking at me. “M-m-me?” she stammers like the fat kid on the softball field who can’t believe he’s been picked first instead of last for a team.
“Of course.” Bianca draws closer to my Second Sister. “I’ve been admiring you since you got here. And I couldn’t help but notice how the cheerleaders have cozied up to you. Nice going, by the way. They’re a pretty frosty bunch. And, of course, that’s fine. Better to hang with the cheerleaders than the losers some of you have fallen in with.” Here, with her emerald-green eyes, she chews me up and spits me out. “But Tristan and I were talking, and Alice agrees it might be time for an upgrade in the friends department for you, Cara. What do you say?”
There is no time for me to argue, intercede, or even breathe.
“I-i-if you think it’s a good idea, Bianca.”
“Oh, she does, she does.” Alice scoots them both out the door before I can protest too loudly—or at all.
Cara moves hastily, decision made, her long, straight back to me. She grabs her purse off her doorknob and rushes to Bianca’s side as if she thinks this one-time offer might quickly expire.
Alice swings the door almost shut, stopping short to look at me. Smiling—no, sneering—she says, “Don’t wait up. This could be another all-nighter.”
Chapter 13
Alice’s words prove prophetic. Cara doesn’t come back to the dorm that night. But then, neither does Alice.
I get some rest, just enough to be vital in case anything shakes loose the next day. The small, metal bed squeaks every time I move. I wake myself out of a finicky sleep, look at the clock on my bare wooden nightstand, and know there’s no us
e even trying anymore.
My running shoes are on the floor, under the window, beckoning me to join Tristan for another early morning run. I stand, stretch, reach for them, then think better of it.
Do I really want to go there?
Today?
Instead, I pace the floors in the dark, hearing them creak beneath me, roaming in and out of my Sister’s empty rooms, imagining them walking in at that very moment, seeing me, hugging me, explaining to me, making me understand, reassuring me. Isn’t that what Sisters are for?
It’s lonely here in these four silent rooms, this grim building groaning, shivering around me.
Light from a streetlamp four stories down filters through the cheap, drawn curtains. I’m tempted to peer out, searching for Alice, for Cara, but know I won’t find them. Not that way. And certainly not down there.
I pause in the center of the room, restless, tired, frustrated, and fearful, and think of the mission, of how it’s going.
Of how it’s going wrong.
Yes, it’s our job to infiltrate the in-crowd, to go undercover, to win their hearts and minds, all so the Vamplayer can’t get to them first.
But this is all moving a little too fast. It’s going a little too well.
I know I shouldn’t complain, but I can’t help it. Something feels off. Anyone who’s ever shown up at a new school, especially a cloistered one like Nightshade, knows you’re not going to get accepted, let alone embraced, overnight.
It usually takes time for the new girls to be accepted, especially when those girls aren’t really girls at all. A week for us to feel the place out, another to find our niches, one more to make our moves, another to prove ourselves, a final one for the popular crowd to accept us, and then we’re in.
The longest it’s ever taken is two months.
The shortest was two weeks.
But two days?
I dunno, something smells fishy here at Nightshade, and the thought of exchanging barbs with Tristan all morning as we try to outdo each other on the track literally turns my stomach.
That’s the hardest part about being a Sister. Yes, the drama sucks major, but it’s something I’m used to. What really rubs me the wrong way is being so close to a Vamplayer and wanting to rip his fangs out but having to play nice.
“Oh, you look so good today, Tristan. Did you get a haircut? Have you been working out?” When all I really want to say is, “Hey, Tristan, how do you want your stake this morning? From the front through the rib cage or from behind through the spine?”
I mean, it’s enough to turn a girl schizo if she’s not careful.
Okay, Lily. I quietly count to ten. Go to your happy place!
Suddenly I picture Zander’s face when I bumped into him yesterday morning, so confused, so hurt. I picture his apron, slung casually over his bony shoulder for another long day at work.
I look at the clock and get a better idea.
Chapter 14
The cafeteria is empty, dreary, and smells faintly of bleach, but the kitchen is already humming when I arrive at the red double doors dressed in my loose jeans, sneakers, and long-sleeved gray T-shirt tight enough to impress but loose enough to move around in.
Grover sees me first, his already mussed hair frizzy from the stifling kitchen heat.
I press one finger to my lips and point to Zander.
Grover smiles, nods, and returns to scrubbing dried egg off the biggest frying pan I’ve ever seen in my life.
The kitchen seems small and cramped to feed so many so fast, but right now it’s just the three of us and feels oddly intimate.
I tread quietly across the slippery rust-colored tiles, careful to avoid a big shiny steel table where knives and towering bowls threaten to topple at the lightest tap.
Zander is standing in the doorway of the chilly walk-in cooler opening up crates marked lettuce when I sneak up from behind and tap him lightly on the shoulder.
“Hi, Lily,” he says with an exaggerated yawn, his fingertips covered in lettuce juice.
“How did you know?” I’m glad Dr. Haskins isn’t around to see how quickly I’ve forgotten my sneaking-up-on-humans tactics.
He points to the shiny inside of the walk-in door, where even now I can see my pale reflection. (Vampires only deny their reflection when they’re in full-on vamp mode, you know, in case you’re keeping track of that kind of thing.)
I grin, slug his shoulder, and reach for an apron hanging off a nearby hook on the white-tiled wall. “So, I came to help. What can I do?”
Grover joins us, the bottom of his too-small Cookie Monster T-shirt peeking over his large, pale belly.
They look at each other and ask, “Why?”
I shrug. “I’m here. Does it really matter why?”
Grover shrugs, which draws his shirt up even more to expose a Lucky Charms belt buckle straining across the top of his dark blue cords.
Zander frowns. “What, your boy toy stand you up at the track this morning?” His voice is warm, but his gaze is cool.
“He’s not my boy toy.”
“Hmmm.” He snorts, bending back to his lettuce. “It sure looked like it when I surprised you both yesterday morning.”
“What? When? Why do I miss all the good stuff?” Grover asks good-naturedly.
“Well, if you’d gotten up when I tried to drag your big carcass out of bed yesterday morning, you would have been with me to see Lily and her new squeeze, Tristan, toweling each other off by the track.”
“What? I never—”
Zander smiles. “Okay, Grover, maybe they weren’t toweling each other off, but they still looked pretty darn cozy to me.”
Grover looks skeptical. “I didn’t know the track was where all the pretty people went to pick up all the other pretty people nowadays.” He sucks in his gut and pounds his chest, King Kong-style. “Maybe I’ll dust off the old Reeboks and give it a whirl tomorrow morning.”
“Well, why wait?” I say. “I bet Tristan’s out there right now, running by his lonesome since I stood him up to hang around the kitchen with you two. Suddenly I’m rethinking my decision.”
“Oh, playing hard to get, are we?” Zander says.
I purse my lips and try not to clench my fists. “It’s pretty hard to play hard to get when nothing’s going on in the first place.”
“If you say so.” He sighs, stretching his back.
Grover sees the fire between us and retreats to the dishwasher, which is noisy enough to drown out our major drama moment.
I wait until the hose is hissing away, turn to Zander with both hands on my hips, and say, “It didn’t look like anything because nothing was going on”
His hands are on his hips, and beneath his apron he’s doing the snug jeans and tight white T-shirt thing. His high-tops are stained with lettuce drippings and ketchup. His curls are flatter than usual, and I instantly think bedhead but in a kind of good way. He smiles crookedly. “It sure looked like it to me.”
“Well, then you have a dirty mind. Is that my fault?”
He shoves me playfully. “Only when I picture you soaking wet in my bathroom.”
“What?”
“Oh, wait, that came out wrong.”
“Yeah.” I slug him. “Try real wrong.”
“What I meant was, well, it was a play on words, actually.” His face is red and getting redder. “Bathrooms are dirty, and yesterday when we soaked you with the hose, you were soaking wet and … oh, forget it. I guess I’m not as smooth as Tristan.”
I shake my head. “I came here to help, not to fight with you.”
He winks. “I’m just messing with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but I don’t want to fight either.”
“Let’s work instead.”
Come to find out, Zander isn’t just stacking lettuce boxes after all. He’s peeling off the top, skuzzy layer of leaves so when the cooks come in later this morning to prep for lunch, they won’t have to.
&n
bsp; He teaches me how to do it. I literally haven’t held a head of lettuce, let alone eaten one, since the eighties. He shows me where to toss the outer layer, and we settle into a steady groove.
“How much lettuce do the kids here eat?” I ask after my third box of three dozen heads of lettuce.
He snickers. “It’s not that the kids eat so much lettuce. It’s that there are so many kids. Now keep peeling!”
Meanwhile, from time to time, Grover taps out some random tune on the bottom of a pot he’s just cleaned before he hangs it up to dry. At the moment it’s the theme from Halloween.
“Have you two always been friends?”
He winces at the constant pot battering. “Who says we’re friends?”
I give him some time, peel one more box of lettuce, and reach for another.
“He’s from Boston originally.” Zander looks at Grover, who’s deep into cleaning another pan, before continuing. “He showed up halfway through freshman year angry— and why not? He’d just gotten kicked out of another prep school, some dump down in Florida, showed up in our dorm suite huffing and puffing. It just so happened I was ditching class on account of a Battlestar Galactica marathon that was running all day, all night. He sat down, grabbed the popcorn, and I’ve been his nursemaid ever since.” He smiles in a bittersweet, almost wistful, what my life might have been without Grover way.
”So you tamed the savage beast, huh?” I smirk, if only to lighten the mood, and toss a lettuce leaf at him.
He deflects it and laughs. “Something like that.”
“Why’d his parents send him away in the first place?”
He shrugs. “They’re uptight preppies who never understood him. He took me home that first Christmas. You know, to show his folks he’d finally made a ‘normal’ friend, whatever that means. They’ve got this huge brownstone on one of the nicest streets in Boston. His mom’s in an apron, one of those frilly lace things like French maids wear, cooking dinner when we come in. Dad’s at the bar—yes, they have a bar in their house—with Grover’s older brother. They’re both in slacks, starched white shirts, and suspenders. Here come Grover and I fresh from the train, high off his Laffy Taffy stash, in matching Freddy Krueger T-shirts. They take one look at us, and we spend the rest of the holiday playing video games in the basement. Needless to say, we haven’t been invited back.”
Vamplayers Page 7
